Devastating Attack, Day Two
The scope of the tragedy takes shape as more news emerges
The news kept coming over the past twenty-four hours and there were quite a few things to add to my first instalment of course. So here we go.
The Politics
First, let’s not forget how Israel’s extreme political divisions over the past year helped set the stage for yesterday’s attack. In hindsight it is easy to see how the country’s enemies realized that an unprecedented opportunity emerged when Israel split into two camps and took to the streets each week, month after month. Jews started to attack each other online, in the media and in parliament while politicians on both sides added fuel to the fire. A house divided cannot stand and Hamas must have started planning their incredible attack the moment the fissures in Israeli society started to emerge. And it was quite the preparation, apparently the entire thing was done by word of mouth in order to avoid any cellphone tracking by Israeli intelligence. There will be more details in the days and weeks to come and the scrutiny as to how Israel could have let this have happened will produce endless studies, books and in the end no doubt movies. For now it seems the gruesome events are prompting the political foes to bury the hatchet and start talking again. A unity government under Nethanyahu but with opposition leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid joining in an emergency national unity cabinet is in the making as we speak. Hamas achieved in a few hours what no other entity on the planet was able to do: get Israel’s political class to collaborate again. Let’s see if a new governing arrangement can be put into place as the hostilities escalate over the next few days.
One word of caution: Nethanyahu’s track record as ‘Mr. Security’ was built on cutting deals with Hamas and essentially looking the other way as the terrorists armed and got ready to lash out. The new environment will require a very different approach and it is far from clear if Bibi is up for this.
The Images
The hard thing over the past twenty-four hours was to look at the horror unfolding. Commentators on ‘X’ were divided about publishing images of the carnage, but in the end it did not take long for everyone to start sharing and watching the videos of the hostage taking, murders and the horrific parading of both dead and captured Israelis on Gaza’s streets. The ‘why’ is simple: you have to look at it to see the evil and you have bear witness to war crimes as they are being committed. But you can’t unsee it and it will haunt you; I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. Or maybe I did, a long time ago: my reference to World War II yesterday was not a random shot. You can now see on social media what carnage looked like when Nazi troops invaded villages in Eastern Europe and dragged people from their homes, raped the women and shot everyone else in sight. The only difference was that it was happening yesterday in Israel in the year 2023 with the world looking on in real-time.
The state of Israel was established to never ever have to let Jews live through murderous pogroms and persecution again. Never again means ‘never again’ and Israel was to be the safe home for the persecuted and survivors of the Holocaust. On the state’s establishment it was the first time the world united around a ‘human rights’ cause: Israel had a right to exist, Jews were to be free from being terrorized second class citizens. Yet, the fear has always been for Arab nations to destroy Israel - with the ‘from the river to the sea’ mantra - and finish Hitler’s work. For the first time in the small nation’s existence, after seventy-five years, it got a taste of what that looks like and it was beyond gruesome. Six-hundred people have been murdered since yesterday morning. You have to understand the context of ‘never again’ to see how this attack ripped open the deepest traumas of every Jew alive today.
Reactions
It’s not my goal here to call out the most bizarre reactions as they started coming out from politicians and commentators all over the world. If you think this family had it coming you are beyond help and certainly beyond hope. That said, there seems to be a decent level of support for Israel as it is starting to engage and roll-back the attackers. In all likelihood Israeli troops will go into Gaza and residents there have been given a warning to clear out and seek safety. That is a courtesy that was not extended to the broken and murdered families who could never have foreseen what an early Saturday morning in October would bring them.
Photo: Noa Argamani was kidnapped and put on a motorcycle and carted off to Gaza yesterday. Her boyfriend was captured too, they had attended a rave party in the desert. Full video here. Even more heartbreaking is her father explaining how he could not be there to protect his only child.